After ultimately a frustrating season at Homelands, Ashford United and boss Tommy Warrilow parted ways by mutual consent. In his first interview since departing a club he managed for the past four years, Warrilow has been speaking to KSN about his frustrations and what the future may hold for him.

“It’s football,” Warrilow told us. “We’ve had four very enjoyable seasons at the club. Like everyone we were interrupted by COVID, but it’s been a tough season regarding the recruitment of players and the coming and going of players with the seven-day approaches because of injuries.”

“I’ve gone through the season trying to be as honest as possible – we’ve never had the consistency, but with the turn round of players that we’ve had, it was always going to be that way. We’ve had a hard season, fighting out results and at the end we’ve come short after the Easter period that really put our season to an end.”

“I was hoping to keep it going as long as possible and I’ve said before from the outside in, that it might look not a good season, but from the inside out, we were just trying to keep the season alive as long as possible and unfortunately we just missed out over the Easter period to continue that over the past few games.”

Last season, Ashford missed out on promotion as they lost the Play Off final against Herne Bay, and Warrilow admitted that it gave him and his staff the hunger going into the new season.

“It was an awful feeling but to have the opportunity to play in the Play Offs underlines a successful season. If you finish second you hope that you’re going up in a League where two teams go up.”

“We didn’t have the chance to get the boys back up as thirteen or fourteen of the players left, so it was a case of rebuilding and getting everyone focused on the expectations of playing for Ashford. There was no problem with that – it was a fresh start for everyone.”

“There was never going to be an easy game in the season – look at the last game of the season, relegated Corinthian go to Whitehawk who are in the Play Off Final and get a draw.”

“There was just no givens in the League this year – I think that it’s the tightest I’ve known. The side that won the League were the most consistent and deserved to have won it, and the boys in the Play Offs, you can’t argue with at the end of the season.”

“I don’t think anyone has been THAT consistent, but it’s one of those Leagues where you can’t look at the League table and think you’re going to have an easy game.”

“You should have the mentality in football to treat everyone the same, but sometimes people look at teams at the top playing teams at the top and automatically think the teams at the top will win.”

“But this year, every game we’ve played we’ve been in a game – there’s been no givens and so it’s been a very tough League to build any momentum up, building new teams.”

“I just hope with what’s going on at the ground and with what’s being done with the pitch, I hope that the people of Ashford can get through the turnstiles and get the numbers up, as the club needs that.”

“Other clubs seem to have been able to do that like at Chatham – it’s unbelievable what they’ve achieved – and Sheppey – with what they’ve got there – they need to get the gates up at Ashford for the improvement on the pitch as well for off the pitch when the stadium is done, it’ll be an unbelievable set up there!”

We finished by asking Warrilow about his future. “Good question,” he said, “for me I’m a football man and want to get back into the game. It’s not that I want to take a break as COVID gave us a break and perhaps people’s philosophy changes – I’m hungry to be successful.”

“I want to manage as high as I can – I had the taste of National League South at Tonbridge and Isthmian Premier – and I want to get back to that and if I can do it with a team ambitious to go through the Leagues then that’s fine.”

“If I can get a team already in there, then that’s fine – it’s an area that I’ve managed before, but I know that there’s a lot of good football people out of work at the moment.”

“I’m not egotistical enough to sit there and think “that’s alright, I’ll bounce back as soon as my phone rings”. I hope it does, but I’m aware that there are a lot of people out there that are in the same boat, so all I can do is to sit back on what I’ve done and hope that someone likes what I’ve done and is going to give us a chance to crack on with OB’s (Warrilow’s number two Alex O’Brien) at another club.”